"On 'Toxic' Behavior"
I agree with the majority of this article. The only real points of contention I have are with his unwarranted personal dig against ("non-celebrity") Wil Wheaton at the beginning, and his assertion that more agency to punish other players should be given to players, rather than less. I mean, he freely admits that humans are assholes, and they are, but he also says that players should be allowed to police themselves (as opposed to having punishments handed down from on high by the game developers or mods hired by them or whatever), as if he didn't know full well that said players, tending toward asshattery as they are generally wont to do, wouldn't abuse the living hell out of such a system. It's one thing to promote individual accountability, but another thing entirely to hand assholes the tools to be even bigger assholes.
For example, he praises the invasion system in Dark Souls as, apparently, a good example of how this sort of thing is done right. Well, I personally feel that the invasion system in Dark Souls is by far the very worst thing about that game series, and it is why I have played through almost the entirety of Dark Souls 1 completely hollow (and thus impervious to player invasion). There are no downsides to this for me, as I am similarly entirely uninterested in summoning in other players to help me (since they can often be even bigger encrusted dickholes than the invaders who are actively trying to kill you). If I go human at all, it's only to kindle a bonfire, and then I immediately throw myself off the nearest cliff, just so that I can become hollow again and thus don't have to deal with other random assholes showing up and briefly ruining my otherwise singleplayer game. The only reason I don't just go offline entirely is because I at least like to see the player messages strewn about, though roughly even half of those are likely to be liars and trolls anyway. It's also why I'm hesitant to buy and play Dark Souls II, since in that game you can still be invaded even if you're hollow, albeit more rarely.
In any case, as I've said many times before, this sort of shit, generally speaking, is why I almost never play multiplayer games at all, ever.
For example, he praises the invasion system in Dark Souls as, apparently, a good example of how this sort of thing is done right. Well, I personally feel that the invasion system in Dark Souls is by far the very worst thing about that game series, and it is why I have played through almost the entirety of Dark Souls 1 completely hollow (and thus impervious to player invasion). There are no downsides to this for me, as I am similarly entirely uninterested in summoning in other players to help me (since they can often be even bigger encrusted dickholes than the invaders who are actively trying to kill you). If I go human at all, it's only to kindle a bonfire, and then I immediately throw myself off the nearest cliff, just so that I can become hollow again and thus don't have to deal with other random assholes showing up and briefly ruining my otherwise singleplayer game. The only reason I don't just go offline entirely is because I at least like to see the player messages strewn about, though roughly even half of those are likely to be liars and trolls anyway. It's also why I'm hesitant to buy and play Dark Souls II, since in that game you can still be invaded even if you're hollow, albeit more rarely.
In any case, as I've said many times before, this sort of shit, generally speaking, is why I almost never play multiplayer games at all, ever.